Art-Rockwell-Girl at the Mirror TB

This trackable is unusual. In the years 2010 to the present, collections of 100-400 travel bugs have been annually released in the United States (95%) and Europe (5%). This travel bug is part of the mere three percent of the 2010-14 collections that has been dropped off at least 25 times and has survived for at least five years.  As of 25 April 2019, this particular travel bug had been moved by 41 cachers and had lasted 6.1 years (2215 days). 

Please drop this item in rural OR Premium Member Only caches.  Do not place it in an urban cache or abandon it at a caching event.  Transport the bug in the original plastic bag for as long as the bag lasts; the bag keeps the trackable clean and prevents tangling with other items.  Otherwise, take the travel bug anywhere you wish.  No permission is needed to leave the U.S.

Travel bug photos are appreciated.  I will re-post them here, where they can be seen by other cachers.

This is one of a series of travel bugs made to recognize paintings or illustrations seen, and admired by the bug owner. A digital copy of this work was downloaded from the internet. The copy was reduced in size and proportions cropped to accommodate the laminating materials available to the owner. Regrettably these processes diminish the effort of the artist. The text below is a mixture of my own observations and material gleaned from the internet.

My grandparents had a subscription to the Saturday Evening Post until it ceased publication in 1969. When I visited them I would gather up the back issues to read the jokes. After a while I began to notice the covers. Norman Rockwell may well have been the first artist whose work I could recognize on sight. Many critics in his lifetime sniffed at the idea that an illustrator could be considered an artist, but time has been kind to him. If art is done to elicit an emotional response, then Rockwell was an artist. Never mind that the emotion was often humor or American ideals and never mind that it didn’t it require a scholar to tell you how you were supposed to interpret it.

This work appeared on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post, March 6, 1954.  Many of Rockwells subjects were seemingly insecure adolescents.  This young girl seems to be asking whether or not she will ever be as beautiful as the voluptuous Jane Russell whose picture she holds in her lap.  Her coming-of-age is suggested in part by the discarded doll at the base of the mirror and partly by the comb, hairbrush, and cosmetics at her feet.  This may be my favorite Rockwell.